Sweed' Bashers Rally

24th September 1982 - 71 MCC

The Friday weather wasn't too bad. I went through only a couple of light showers on the way down. True to form, I turned up way too early at this one. The control tent hadn't even been set up, so we spent a little time in the café/pub.

                   

- Phil the Spill

As it was the tenth rally, the badge was about twice the size of the usual ones, and it didn't have a year bar.

After the organisers arrived and got set up, so did club-mate Adolf, who brought along a friend of his on his pillion. As we did last year, we spent most of the Friday evening in the pub, where the owner put on a disco.

Saturday morning was a brighter, almost pleasant day. I even decided to enter the Treasure Hunt in the afternoon. A few of us formed a team, myself, Adolf + pillion, and two friends of ours were on their bike. We were doing well, until a wrong turn took us down a bit of a muddy track. When Adolf tried to turn around, he managed to drop the bike on his leg. We managed to get Adolf back to the last house we passed, where we phoned for an ambulance. We would have used our CB radios, but we needed to ask where we were. I followed the Ambulance to A&E, and our friends got the bikes and pillion back to the site. Several hours later, with Adolf's leg in a temporary cast, I took him back to the site as well, shortly before the rain really started throwing it down.

The rain on Saturday evening was incredible. If you wanted to enter or leave the marquee you had to negotiate a wall of water across the doorway. Across the valley I could see an immense rain cloud, which did look as if it was going to pass us by, suddenly turn left and head straight for us, and the deluge continued.

Unfortunately, at some point during the weekend, one of my films fell out of my pocket and I lost quite a few photos, including all of Saturday and Sunday. I vaguely remember they had a couple of well-endowed young ladies in the wet t-shirt contest.

Happily I discovered that my tent's waterproofing, (polythene sheet), was holding up, so I had a dry night's sleep.

The rain had let up by the morning, but it was still overcast. Adolf was obviously unable to drive, so the same friend as yesterday drove his bike home, with him on the pillion. The friend's other half had to drive their bike back, (luckily they had shared the one bike there), with Adolf's pillion pal on the back.

- Phil (the Spill) Drackley